Social Psychologist & Personal Advisor

Below is Dr Matt's Answer
to a Burning Question

Your Emotional Health will Consistently Correlate
to The Choices You are Making in Life:
You Possess the Final Veto Vote

Hi Dr Matt,

I'm not sure if you can help me or answer my questions or not. I am from Montreal, Quebec in Canada. I am separated from my husband for 4 years now, I am 28 years old. My question is about me. I'm a person who puts all her feelings deep inside and dealing with everyday life seems to be working for me mostly.

But, since my separation from my husband and government authorities apprehending my children, since the last year or so I find myself changing.....I don't want to do things, I want to feel sorry for myself, I want to cry and do not know why I'm crying. I seem to help friends and family deal with their problems and help them with their stresses, which adds to my own personal burden.

I'm confused and this letter may be confusing. I'm sorry but, like I said, you probably won't be able to answer me anyway cause I have a lot of issues, I know. And your advise to me will probably be to talk to my own doctor (which i will not do) or to go see a shrink (therapist) which I already do—but I am not one to talk about my real issues at hand. Again, I keep my feelings deep inside.

I'm sorry to have bothered you with all my problems but maybe just to sit and write this letter to someone might just ease some pain so if any thing thanks for listening and reading this email.

My name is Lacey by the way.

Dear Lacey:

You write the following four phrases:

     1)   You probaly won't be able to answer me anyway
     2)   And your advise to me will probaly be to talk to my own doctor, or
     3)   Go see a shrink (therapist) which I already go to
     4)   I'm sorry to have bothered you

To answer these four issues, here is my reply:

  *   Yes, I can help you.
  *   No, I would not advise you to talk to your doctor, AND
  *   No, I would not advise you to see a shrink—and if you are seeing one, then quit and talk to me.
  *   You cannot know that my reading of your email, is perceived by me as a bother? Truth is, it is not!

By anticipating what you "think" I might say — and instead of letting your words land on me as they may, letting my responses BE whatever they ARE — you have reacted in a behavior pattern called "horribilizing." Horribilizing is the frustrated, fretful process of making the future WORSE than it ever might Be, before it has arrived. And further, horribilizing means getting twisted up in useless emotions about a Future that hasn't happened yet.

Here are a couple of sayings contained in my Changing Your Stripes Manual that are pertinent your horribilizing pattern:

Worry is like a rocking chair,
it may keep you occupied,
but it doesn't get you anywhere.

For every ten troubles coming down the road,
nine will fall in the ditch before they get to you.

So, Lacey, if you feel you have not expressed yourself clear enough, please take the opportunity to add or delete details from your letter, so the situation is adequately described. THEN, I will absolutely show you the way out of your dilemma!

There is a reason why I would not have you primarily rely upon the help of your doctor or therapist. My approach is fundamentally different: It is not based upon the popular approach of programming your Head. Differently, my approach focuses upon hearing and heeding the impressions of your Heart.

Your response-ability will be to LISTEN, LEARN, and DO. If you follow my advice, then you will absolutely be helped. Your issues will melt away like the morning frost before the rising Sun.

Write me back, clarify your situation, and I will answer in an excellent way.

Best Regards,
Dr Matt

Dr.Matt,

Here's another try at explaining myself. I did not mean to be anything or make up an accusation about you in my first email. I was just feeling really bad last night and I appoligize to you for that.

I am not really sure of my question it's just the fact of talking about the way I feel. I seem to deal with my problems by burrying them deep within and moving on, I also listen to and help others with there problems but yet their stresses seem to become part of mine. When I wrote the email to you last
night (early morning), I was on a real down and crying for whatever reason and I'm not sure about. I seem to do this alot.

I seem to push the people I love away from me or do they push away from me? I am not sleeping, do not want to do anything very often. Every time something seems to be going good I finally
think I'm moving ahead in life something stops it. I am still hurt by the fact that my husband and I are separated and I do not get to see my children which are now 6 and 8 years of age.

I'm a person that does not like to talk, so I am really unsure how it is I need to express myself
because i don't do that too often, but hopefully, I have expressed my self more clearly this time.

ABOUT 3 HOURS LATER, Lacey writes again:

Dr. Matt,

I'm still waiting your reply. I told you that you would not answer me!

Dear Lacey:

You resort to horribilizing quite quickly—it's been about 3 hours from the time your most recent email arrived in my email-box. Today is Sunday; it's a day that I take a break from my daily work. On Monday, I will do what I said I would do. I will write you, and answer you in a most excellent way.

In the mean time, you will be much better prepared to receive what I will tell you, if you will do your part. It is vital for you to understand, about healthy and happy emotions versus unhealthy and distressing emotions.

Best Regards,
Dr Matt

THE NEXT DAY:

Dear Lacey:

When you do Life right, . . . then Life will do you right!
When you do Life right, then peaceful emotions will fill you and flow from you.

Doing Life right means this: Living in Harmony with the Truth that the Creator has "written upon your heart" (Jeremiah 31: 33). About three thousand years ago King Solomon wrote this proverb:

"Keep thy heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life." (Proverbs 4: 23).

I encourage you to move your mind from the focus of your problems, and look to the Lord's Life and Love. If you do this, you will be filled His Light (Matt. 6: 21, 22).

Lacey, when His Light fills you and flows from you, then every shadow of darkness in you must necessarily depart. Like turning on the light in a room, as soon as you flip the switch, darkness departs.

As you keep your "eye single" to He who can fill you with Love and Light, then all the dark emotions that currently trouble you, will completely disappear — they MUST depart in the presence of Light. Just like cold frost quickly melts before the heat of the rising Sun.

You will find your Life in precisely the way that Jesus taught:

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it (Matt. 10: 39).

The powers of darkness will entice you to the wrong focus—away from the Light, and directly back onto your problems. This is where your focus is presently. To get a sense for how to overcome the unsettling enticements of darkness, please read about how Satan is in the Self-Talk.

You can get clear on the tell-tale signs of WHEN you are yielding to dark temptations by reading this "SelfTalk" article, and also by reading and understanding the article about BRIAR Emotions that I recommended to you in my previous email.

When you learn the truth about dark influences in your life — the whole reality of your social environment, seen and unseen — then you must strengthen your ability to hear and heed the gentle whisperings coming from your Creator. The following article will help you know how to communicate with your Creator—a Communication of the Heart, and not the Head.

What you will read in these online articles will create a solid foundation upon which you can dispel the darkness from your life — and when darkness departs, so will your problems.

If you purchase a copy of my book "Changing Your Stripes," it will provide additional information and support in to proceed in the right direction.

When the foundation is properly laid, the opportunity is before you: Realizing happiness and healing is now up to you.

If you will hear and heed the invitations coming from the Light, you will be strengthened beyond your natural capacity — strengthened to follow the path to personal peace. In contrast, if you push aside the promptings of Peace and Love and Light, . . . you will remain as you are:

             I don't want to do things
             I want to feel sorry for myself
             I want to cry
             I'm confused
             I keep my feelings deep inside
             stresses seem to become part of mine
             pushing the people you love away
             not sleeping,
             feel hurt
             not liking to talk

And further, you will continue to horribilize the future:

             You probably won't be able to answer me anyway cause i have a lot of issues
             And your advise to me will probably be to talk to my own doctor (which i will not do), or
             Go see a shrink (therapist) which I already go to
             I'm sorry to have bothered you
             I told you that you would not answer me.

As you see, I have answered you. And I would have answered you regardless of your doubts; because that is who I am. I keep my word.

Here are more words that you have written, that reveal what's going on with you:

"Every time something seems to be going good
I finally think I'm moving ahead in life something stops it.

The "something" that stops the good progress in your life is YOU — but it is NOT just YOU alone, for you are being enticed to make your self-defeating decisions. The reality of what is happening is this: You are doing a duet with darkness; YOU are casting your veto vote to dance with the devil.

Again, you possess the final veto vote, and in this regard, your future destiny is in your hands.

If you try to go it "alone," you will continue to cast your veto vote in the same way you've been casting it in recent days. If you go it alone, you are no match for Satan — no one is. But if you will call upon the Creator, and "trust in Him" (Proverbs 3: 3-8), He will provide a way of escape; He will strengthen you beyond your natural capacities, for that is His promise:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man:
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able;
but will with the temptation also make a way to escape,
that ye may be able to bear it (1 Cor. 10: 13).

Satan will try to entice you to "horribilize" these future possibilities. Satan will try to tempt you to dismiss the Power of the Lord. But know this: The Creator keeps His promises 100% of the time.

Best Regards,
Dr Matt

Dr.Matt,

So your true answer to all my problems is God, yeah right . . . imagine that? How do I know you are a doctor and not some church praiser? I don't mean to dis you cause I dont know you but how can I know that you really are a Doc? Call me a horribilizer or not, lets be realistic here for a minute. God! What on earth do people believe in that tale?

Is that your approach to all people you write to and help? And it actually helps them? I'm sorry but if your answer for me is to follow GOD'S way it's not the right approch for me. I do not believe in him or his work and I do not believe that there is a devil either. I was born and baptized a Catholic, but since the age of like 13, I have not followed his words nor did I step foot in a church for a mass unless for a wedding or funeral.

I told you that no-one has helped me and I didn't believe you could either, so I guess if you haven't made yourself clear in this email you may want to add or delete some stuff and clear up
your answer to me, then maybe write me an answer back. Lacey

Dear Lacey:

Yes, indeed, I have earned a Ph.D. in Social Psychology.

The signals coming from your life in Montreal are loud and clear. In science, it's called a CORRELATION. Pay attention to the thoughts, feelings, and actions coming out of you:

             I don't want to do things
             I want to feel sorry for myself
             I want to cry
             I'm confused
             I keep my feelings deep inside
             stresses seem to become part of mine
             pushing the people you love away
             not sleeping,
             feel hurt
             not liking to talk

And what are these behaviors and emotions correlated to?

            "God! What on earth do people believe in that tale?"

You write: Is that your approach to all people you write to and help? And it actually helps them?

Answer: Yes, it does!

I do this for a living, Lacey. I have personally observed what works, compared to what does not work — over and over again. I am crystal clear on what works!

What I recommend to you is NOT Theory. It IS simply what works according to my first hand experience over many years. I have said nothing to you about "religion," and we know for sure that your experience with the Catholic Church didn't work — so listen to that particular correlation as well, and keep searching until you find what works!

Remember the definition of Insanity:
Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.

What you are currently thinking and doing isn't working, else you would NOT be writing to me, and seeking for solutions. If you continue with your current behaviors and beliefs, you will absolutely continue to get the same results:

             I don't want to do things
             I want to feel sorry for myself
             I want to cry
             I'm confused
             I keep my feelings deep inside
             stresses seem to become part of mine
             pushing the people you love away
             not sleeping,
             feel hurt
             not liking to talk

Again, it's called a correlation. Pay attention to what is before your very eyes. For a moment, become aware of what your own experience is telling you.

I clearly see the correlations of your life. I know what works.

I have presented to you a "seed" of possibility. You will never know if that seed will grow, unless you plant it and nurture it. As long as you refuse to perform an experiment, you will never know if the "seed" I have given you . . . is good. This is the way I say it in my book:

Being True brings the natural consequence of "better," and
the choice to Betray naturally delivers the consequence of "bitter."
These are the fruits that spontaneously grow, according to the seeds we sow;
this IS the Law of the Harvest, . . . the Law that makes Life Self-Correcting.

These two foundational choices carry with them two connected consequences: How else would you know that you’re NOT doing the things that bring personal peace, unless the results of your doings were . . . “bitter?” And how else would you know to continue what you're doing, unless your productive doings resulted in things being . . . “better?”

Choosing better over bitter . . . that's a no-brainer! Of course, anyone would logically choose to eat a healthy meal over a pile of mud! But the fact is . . . you literally can't choose the meal of goodness, if you're NOT the kind of creature that naturally gravitates to goodness. You don't really choose bitter or better directly . . . for they are the end products of the two foundational choices of Be True or Betray; thus, to reap the most coveted consequences you must go to the well that supplies the water.

So, why doesn't everyone simply choose to Be True, when this choice brings the richest rewards? Answer: Because they can't, . . . it's not "in" them to choose it; they are NOT yet the kind of creatures that are capable of seeing the virtue of true choices—let alone making those true choices (Changing Your Stripes, page 250).

The central question echoes again: how can you grow the flower of your fulfillment, if you won't plant the seed; and even if you do plant the seed, . . . how can that flower flourish if you fail to nurture the seed? For, if you don't seize this seed, and plant this seed, and nurture this seed, you will never succeed in Recovering the True You. Your old broken-record routine will tend to play its annoying tune over and over again, until you Change Your Stripes!

The saying goes, “You can’t change a tiger’s stripes!” Indeed YOU alone cannot bring about this change. YOU cannot “make it happen” by the force of your own mental will; instead, you must “let it happen”— you must yield to the Light of Innocence and allow the Creator to recover you and redeem you.

Lacey, I encourage you to diligently do the experiment, plant the seed and faithfully tend to its growth. Then, believe what your own experience is willing to teach.

Sincerely,

Matt Moody, Ph.D.
Social Psychologist

* * * * * * *

The Greatest Prize
for Life's labors isn't
in material possessions
or impressive accomplishments,
but in the progress of personal character.
You labor for your own becoming, this is your richest reward.
Who You Become is your greatest possession,
make it your Masterpiece!
(Changing Your Stripes, 2nd Edition, page 274).

The book, "Changing Your Stripes" presents principles for getting out of
the ditch in which you've been dumped (the difficulties of which you are a victim), and
the ditch in which you've jumped (the difficulties for which you volunteer).

"Mastering a challenging situation
is ultimately a matter of
mastering yourself!"
- Matt Moody 

"Changing Your Stripes," teaches you the principles that lead to lasting change,
making you a new kind of creature capable of communicating
with calm, even as storms of contention swirl.

If these principles resonate and ring true,
then . . . this book is for you!

Sold Exclusively
through this website

Changing Your Stripes is a
unique reference book that will help
you understand, . . . and solve all of
Life's ever-appearing problems.
Here are more reasons to buy
Changing Your Stripes

Social Psychologist & Personal Advisor